


Oh, Ward?

by FractalHoneycomb



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2020-10-27 21:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20767541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FractalHoneycomb/pseuds/FractalHoneycomb
Summary: Sometimes ideas from Ward enter the pepper grinder that is my brain and are shaken out as bitter, slightly spicy flakes of snippet





	1. From Within 16.11.5

“Maybe,” Byron said. “Stirrings sounds right.”

“Vista has been stopping by a lot. You seemed to notice her,” Tristan commented. “If you need any motivation.” 

Byron went still at that for a moment. “Holy shit. Tristan!” He looked around, all directions, before leaning in and whispering in his brother’s ear.

“How...are you serious? You’re really thinking about that at a time like this?”

“I’ve had a hot girl curled up on my bed for a week straight. I can’t think of anything else, and don’t tell me you’re not considering it too, now.”

“Well I...shit...I’m not exactly ready and raring to go right now, am I?”

“Make do! We have no way of knowing whether we’ll get another chance like this.” With that, Byron jogged off over one of the nearby hills.

I called out after him. “Byron! Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry about it, just, uh get moving and I’ll catch up in like ten minutes!”

I turned to ask Tristan what was happening, but he was making his way toward a different hillside. “Stop! Are you guys mastered? What is this?”

Tristan paused, looking back and forth between me and the distance. “We just. Victoria, listen, Byron and I, we. Look, all I’m saying is, well, see you in a bit. Don’t follow me! Well, don’t follow either of us, but definitely don’t follow me! Maybe Byron would appreciate it if you followed him, actually, but I really don't know, in fact I've spent years of my life purposefully not knowing.” He was stumbling backwards up the hill as he spoke, his words faltering every time he tripped over some crag in the surface of the material.

He went on and disappeared beyond the other side of the hill, briefly popping back up to look in our direction, holding his hands up to frame Rain in his line of vision before nodding to himself and moving on.


	2. From Within 16.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just why was Damsel so nasty to Victoria when they fought this arc?

“Ashley...Ashley…” The voice was distant and echoey, but it was clear.

“Victoria? You...you’re here…” Ashely reached out a hand, taking Victoria’s and intertwining their fingers. The world was still only half-visible through a white haze.

“Of course, I’m here, silly. You didn’t think I’d miss our wedding day, did you?” Ashley jolted, taking in her surroundings. Behind Victoria, all of Breakthrough in matching suits. Behind herself, the other 9 Ashleys in tattered bridesmaid dresses. Director Armstrong, Bonesaw riding on his shoulders, was by her side, having walked her down the aisle. She turned back to the officiant, her dear friend Chris Elman, who was holding the rings out to them with some of the many, many, many hands he currently possessed. This really was the happiest day of her—

Damsel of Distress slammed upright, waking from the dream by sheer force of will. She was sick and fucking tired of getting all of Swansong’s dreams now that the other clone was dead again. "Next time I see Victoria, I’m gonna have to be mean as shit to her to balance this out."


	3. From Within 16.9.5

Surrounded by setbacks. It seemed as though everything was conspiring to get in the way of his goals. First Teacher, then the heroes, now Panacea wavering harder than she ever had. He didn’t have time for any of this. Not for setbacks, not for failures, and certainly not for _ distractions. _

The world was falling apart, but that just pushed him to work harder. He had been working on this formula for some time, the idea bouncing around in his head after he had solidified his escape plan. Propulsion was going to be an issue in the vacuum of space, and if this worked it would be ideal. Gravity manipulation, from a partial scan of Snag, blended with some of the other cluster members to get a clearer idea of how it worked. He injected the serum and felt his body began to change. 

Hard angles, a torso expanding outward irregularly in leaps and starts. The end product would probably look like a haphazardly assembled pile of children’s blocks, he thought. Arms and legs almost vestigial at this point, he felt the various bladders and mechanisms inside his body shift as they shuffled gases of different densities to life him off of the ground. He promptly slammed back down, fast asleep. He wasn’t the only one. 

* * *

He turned away from the sight, sprinting back to the employees-only door he had wandered through. Eyes fixed on the locked chain holding it shut, he blinked and the image flickered. The door opened without difficulty, and he continued his flight from his sister. Other people were running, too. Frantically, he tried to wave them down, tell somebody what was happening, but he knew nobody would listen. He joined the tide of people, moving in fits and starts. He stumbled, for a moment, and saw with blurry eyes his hand crushed underfoot before he was disorientingly back upright, hand unmarred. 

The scene jumped and he saw his younger brother was still on the mall concourse with him, hemmed in by the crowd. Chris shoved his way towards him, grabbing him and pushing him up, up toward the window. The image flickered again, and for an instant it was a skylight framed by the cold, clinical walls of the workshop where they were trapped. With one final push, his brother was out of the crowd’s reach—and then he fell back down. 

Chris saw a flash of blond hair moving away through the crowd and knew, somehow, that it had been his sister’s doing. Somehow she had been the reason their brother fell to be crushed to death by the press of people. He opened his mouth to scream but what came out instead was a harsh, delirious laugh. It tore at his throat in its volume, and even as he tried to control it, tried to get someone else to notice _ her _, he knew that there was no way he’d have his voice under control by the time she could be caught—if anyone would even believe him when he told them.

* * *

Chris sat up, as much as he could in the space. He sat in a cramped room, electronics and machinery limiting his movement. Extricating himself, he stood, looking down at his body. It was a malformed, ugly thing, where it was visible beneath the baggy T-shirt and cargo pants hanging loosely off of it. Quickly turning his attention outwards, he locked eyes with, honestly speaking, the absolute last person he wanted to see at the moment. Expression surprised but body language excited, Kenzie gave him a small wave as the rest of the group stood and got ready to face off against what looked like a four-dimensional hand monster. 

Chris plopped himself right back down in his room, wires and metal corners jabbing at his shoulder where he leaned against a console. He watched the shard creature with mild interest, and wished he had a notebook to keep track of what he was seeing for later experimentation. Antares passed through his line of vision, slowing in her movement as she turned back to face him.

“Chris? What are you doing here?”

“Watching you all get splattered by a hand monster, I guess. Wish I’d brought popcorn.”

“No, _ how _ are you here? You weren’t anywhere near us! I don’t understand why you were brought in too." Neither did Chris, but he couldn’t let her think that.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, huh?” Perfectly acted. Nailed it. 

“Okay, if you don’t get it either then you can just say so.” Damn it. “We’re kind of in a crisis right now, any chance you’ll help out?” 

Chris raised both middle fingers in response, and refocused on the fight as Antares turned away, rolling her eyes, and charged in. He wasn’t rooting for them. In fact, he hoped they got crushed by the creature so he never had to hear from them again. Definitely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a discussion in the Cauldron Discord about what Chris's dream room vision would have been and I got it in my head that he just coincidentally glitched his way in by using a mall cluster scanned form the same day that all of Breakthrough went in. His vision is all blended up with the other mall cluster members because the shards are confused as shit about what's happening.


	4. Path To Conclusive Character Arcs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this isn't a callout, I just thought it was funny.

_ “I think that’s all any of us can hope for,” her father said. _

Fortuna slammed the laptop shut. That sucked. What kind of pansy-ass ending to a story was that? If you’re going to kill the protagonist, have the guts to actually  _ kill _ that protagonist. Don’t just bring her back in the last part of the epilogue! Stupid. She whipped the laptop open again, scanning the internet for other readers, people who were just as disgusted as her with this copout of an ending. There! The creator himself, sharing his opinions on the story. Surely he would have some way of justifying this terrible move. He had done so well on so many other writing choices!

...

Ambiguous?  _ Coma? _ This was somehow even worse. Fortuna closed the laptop again, and asked her questions. Path to staying secure, path to having an uninterrupted fun time pizza party at the beach, path to avoiding master effects. Everything green for the time being. She was going to have a good time, and that was that. Except. That damn  _ story _ . The ending just didn’t sit right with her. The girl was so willing to sacrifice herself, and she didn’t deserve personal happiness after all the choices she’d made so why—yeah. “This is going to keep bugging me forever,” she reflected aloud. It just wasn’t thematically resonant! There needs to be consistency in the point a story is trying to make.

She asked her questions again, as was her habit. Path to staying safe, path to enjoying my vacation, path to keeping Teacher out of my hair...and then an idea struck her. She stood slowly and walked to the shore, barefoot. This was a terrible idea. But if she could do it…it might really be worth it.

She asked her question, and saw the path. When Teacher’s men came for her, she was knee deep in the surf, relishing her last moments of freedom before it all went into motion.

* * *

Fortuna gazed down upon the city— _ every _ city. Her thousand eyes surveyed all possible iterations of the space around her, and showed her the route to her target. A sealed dimension, designed to be unbreachable even by her power, and the target within. This was the only way to reach her, she reasoned. And it had worked, despite the need to maneuver around her power’s blindspots. The Simurgh was there, but whatever. She wasn’t in the right position to interfere with the path Fortuna had set herself down two years ago. It would all be worth it, so long as she could do what she came her for.

She slid across the ground, though it wasn’t really sliding, and she wasn’t really touching the ground. The target was there, sitting at a cafe table, idly sipping her tea. Fortuna approached, and the humans below scattered, all except the girl. She looked up from the book resting on the table to level a glare at the Titan. “What?” There was no fear or confusion in the girl’s voice, only annoyance. Well, the feeling was mutual. Fortuna extended a massive arm, the very tip of which balanced a nine millimeter pistol between a set of nearly-intersecting eyelids. The girl’s eyes widened fractionally. “Hang on, are you actually going to—?” She was cut off by the hail of bullets that tore through her, leaving her undeniably,  _ unambiguously _ dead. 

Fortuna stood back up to her full height, feeling entirely satisfied with—she looked around. Saw the destruction she’d wrought upon reality itself in the pursuit of this goal. Perhaps...this wasn’t actually an issue that demanded so much effort be expended. The world could function just fine with a story ending in a way that didn’t satisfy anyone. Fortuna held these thoughts in her mind. What if...there were alternatives, to getting mad at things she read on the internet? Better, more constructive uses of her time? Had all this energy, all this horror and madness been for nothing?

This was all a mistake. She should have just read that fantasy story everyone said was getting very popular lately. There was a whole list of web fiction, she could have just chosen one of the entries further down the list and seen if it had a better ending. Or she could have written her own fiction as a fan of the original story. She wondered if there was a word for that. At any rate, weren’t there better options than destroying all of humanity in every dimension to correct a writing decision she viewed as subjectively bad? 

_ Nah. Worth it. _


	5. Charity Reed Eats A Balanced Breakfast, OR: Manic Pixie Dream Titan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good Dad. Best Friend.

Charity Reed was going to get their damn Frosties if it was the last thing they did. 

It was starting to seem like that would in fact be the case, as they edged around the massive glowing crystal that had collapsed their _ fucking roof _. It was too early in the day to put up with this shit. There was some sort of crud in their hair from last night, and the barely-done bathrobe would keep them slightly warm at best. 

“If you want to visit someone in their home, it’s fucking polite to knock first!” Charity hadn’t had a visitor in some time, but they weren’t quite so desperate to be okay with this kind of house call.

They definitely weren’t going to touch it. That seemed like a spectacularly stupid idea. This thing had destroyed their apartment without, it seemed, even moving. Charity was less durable than the steel and concrete of their home. The chill wind of the late autumn morning whipped through the hole in the wall surrounding the crystal. 

The real issue at hand was that the tip of the intruder reached just far enough to fully bisect the room. There was no way around it if they wanted to reach the cabinets on the far wall. No choice but to go over, they supposed. They could hear a helicopter outside, and a crowd. Probably here to gawk at the fancy new thing, but Charity didn’t have any interest in those things.

Charity approached their trendy new wall-to-wall divider, and tried to gauge whether it was possible to jump over. At the narrowest point, it was still a few feet across and about waist height. So, not quite certain of their ability to break any hurdling records before breakfast, Charity turned to that most human of skillsets: using tools. 

They squatted down and grabbed at the sides of the coffee table, letting out a heavy puff of air as they lifted. It was a cumbersome thing, and they took a couple steps back while adjusting to the weight. Then, they turned, another exertion tipping one end upwards, and let it come to rest on the tip of the crystalline toe, tilted their way. Charity set one foot on the unsteady surface and then carefully put their weight on it, trying not to tip it over. They clambered awkwardly to the end that hung over the ridge and hopped down, stumbling as their feet found purchase on the gravel and dirt that the wall and ceiling had been reduced to. _ Graceful. _

The rest of the process was simple, rote. Bowl from the drying rack, cereal from the cabinet, milk from the fridge. They bumped the fridge door closed with one hip, pouring the milk into the bowl. Milk came first, as always. Then the Frosties. Charity snagged a spoon from the drawer—no spoons in the drawer, damn it all. The sink? All filthy. Disposable spoon from the pantry then. Plasticware in hand, they walked over to the bar, ready to tuck in. With their off hand, they grabbed the TV remote and flipped on the set, thankfully visible over the glowing intruder.

Then the Titan _ did something. _

Charity wasn’t really clear on what it did, just that they were now covered in milk and soggy cereal, and the bowl lay shattered on the ground. Charity got up and walked back over to the counter to make another bowl. No issues this time. As they returned to the bar, now edging close to anger, they saw that the coffee table bridge had splintered to bits as a result of the Titan’s interference. Unbelievable. This enormous asshole wasn’t going to stop until all of their stuff was destroyed, huh? Fuck off. Absolutely not.

* * *

_ Several weeks later _

Living with Kronos was a hassle. Obnoxiously loud music, always took up too much space on the couch, never paid rent or did laundry, played his loud music all hours. Really just a rotten roommate. You’d think he’d chop in for a pizza every now and then, but considering that he never ate that was more forgivable. And apparently he had a friend hanging around too, but at least _ she _ had the courtesy to only exist in one dimension at a time, and it wasn’t this one. 

Oh, did they mention the music? It was like an opera singer doing their most bombastic impression of a crying baby. Allegedly attributable to his guest, as far as Charity understood, but he certainly didn’t keep a lid on it. If they touched him with a piece of silverware, it would ring out like a tuning fork at the same note for longer than they thought it should. Why do this? Well, he knocked out what the receiver they used to pick up little television was still broadcasting, so the other options for amusement were limited. They had thrown some heavy blankets over his foot to try and dull the noise soon after it started. It didn’t work, but it did minimize the risk of touching him.

They considered leaving, sometimes. The soldiers who helped clear the area when he first appeared advised that they move out, but none had wanted to come close enough to the Titan to physically remove them from the premises. There were lots of good reasons to run away, get some refugee housing, and forget this all ever happened; there were very few reasons to stick around. 

It wasn’t all bad, admittedly. The Titan gave off some (probably not radioactive) heat pretty constantly, which kept Charity warm despite the snow. This was a well-received courtesy because his big fat foot had also severed the building’s gas line, rendering the heater useless. Once they had tossed the blankets over him, it turned out that he was a perfect backrest for reading or napping. Like he was custom-made to keep them comfortable. 

The soldiers hadn’t come around in a while, writing them off as a lost cause. One stopped by again when the rest of the city was being evacuated, with one last plea that they leave. Sorry, ma’am, no can do. The landlord ran out with the last month’s rent, in _ clear _ violation of the lease, so this place was Charity’s until the end of next month. They had worked hard as hell to get their own place, find work and a comfortable space to live, and damned if some multiversal monster was going to stand in the way of that. It was the _ principle _ of the thing. They would have fought any unfair eviction just as steadfastly. Most eviction notices come on paper, not twenty-story crystals, but the thing about acting on principle is that it’s flexible, for scenarios exactly like theirs.

He was someone to talk to, as well. _ God _ , Charity often thought, _ how sad is it that my closest friend is my pet rock _. Even so, they hadn’t talked to anybody about how they were doing in a long while. Their parents, dead when the world ended; their ex-girlfriends, good and bad. Sometimes they would just chit-chat, talking about the weather or the news or something they’d read on the internet that morning. Sometimes they would scream and rage, about how awful the world had turned out, how humanity was probably going to fail, how their only connections in the world were a dead cape and the fucking Simurgh. But it was better to talk about it than keep it in, and it was easier to talk when there was an audience, responsive or not. And sometimes he did seem responsive, the pattern of light in the crystals shifting and pulsing. They imagined it meant something, sometimes.

So yes, Kronos was a huge pain in the ass, and possibly a threat to humanity’s long-term survival, and maybe acting as a conduit to a psychic known for implanting murder commands in people years in advance. But whatever! Nothing wrong with being a sleeper agent if the world ended (again) and if the sleeper agent thing became a problem that meant the world would still be around, so Charity thought those last two kind of cancelled out.

All that aside. Kronos was a person, under the rocks. A hero, according to the internet. Someone good and selfless, who was a rising star in the ranks of the Protectorate and willingly gave his life to defend the people. He was a good man, who didn’t deserve to be alone any more than Charity, and they sure as hell didn’t count having an endbringer on his shoulder as keeping him company. So they had stayed, and talked, and lived with their friend the Titan. And life was good, in a way.

Charity poured a cup of coffee from the pot, setting it on the table. They returned to the stove and worked the frying pan quickly, tossing in a handful of peppers as the eggs cooked. With a flick of the wrist, the burgeoning omelet flipped gracefully and landed back in the pan, the reverse side lightly browned. A few moments more and it was done, set on the plate and transferred to the table. They sat contentedly, ready for the meal. “I think it’s gonna be a good day. How about you?” The Titan sat silently, as they expected. 

Then he moved, for the first time in weeks.

The blankets, heavy wool, tore like tissue paper as he slid forwards. The wall, as well as the tarps hung up to block the wind from the hole he’d made with his arrival, crumpled without a moment of resistance. “No! No, please wait! You great big jackass! Wha—where are you going?” Charity had spilled coffee on themselves in the rush to intercept the Titan and didn’t even feel it through their panic. He continued to glide forwards, inexorable. He shifted incrementally as he advanced—dodging the TV on the far wall. “Please, please stay. You’re all I’ve got, man. Come on!” He was almost through the other side of the building. 

_ Stupid, so fucking stupid. _ Charity couldn’t believe they spent so much time and energy on this... _ thing _. Spilling their secrets to it like they were having a slumber party with an alien intelligence. Of course it couldn’t respond, it probably barely regarded them at all. This had all been a waste of time. But they were telling the truth earlier. The Titan, it was all they had left. No other friends or family, their employer disappeared in the evacuation. Not even a cat, because of the building’s no pets policy. With Kronos gone Charity would be all alone in this empty world. What then? 

They reached out, impulsively, and grabbed him, as though they would be strong enough to hold it down. Blinding pain tore through their head in response, but in the fraction of a second of contact they got what they needed.

[SORRY FOR THE MESS, ROOMIE]

It was like the words were being tattooed on the inside of their brain one character at a time, and the ink was boiling hot enough to vaporize on contact. Another lance of pain came an instant later.

[STAY SAFE, CHARITY]

Charity sat up after a while. The only clue how much time has passed was the distance Kronos had put between the two of them, because he had broken all the clocks when he spoke and Charity hadn’t bothered to replace them. Blood streaming from their nose, wishing their head would explode just to relieve some of the awful pressure there. They stood, leaning heavily on the countertop. Kro—Dauntless was off toward the horizon, marching off to war. “Fuck 'em up, big guy,” they croaked. They gathered some essentials: cash, IDs, clothes, and a snack for the road. Dry cereal wasn’t much, but it would keep for a while. They changed out of their coffee-stained shirt, pausing to wipe the wetness off of their skin. Slinging a bag over their shoulders, Charity Reed took off down the road at a run towards the nearest evacuation route. Something told them there wasn't much time to spare if they didn’t want to let their best friend down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to just be a little shitpost about someone being mad that a giant smashed through their house but like...guess I got sentimental.


End file.
